Sen. Mary L. Landrieu, D-La., said Wednesday that she believes flood insurance legislation was the deciding factor in Tuesday's special election in Florida, not health care.

Landrieu has championed the legislation in the Senate and, as CQ Roll Call reported previously , has her own political motivations for doing so, given her own tough re-election bid in 2014. But the Louisiana Democrat said Wednesday that House GOP leaders saw the importance of the issue in the Florida gulf district and pushed through a bill, which the Senate could take up as soon as this week, to its own political benefit. "The Florida special election was more about flood insurance than it was about health insurance and I'm proud to have raised that issue because that district cares a lot about flood insurance," Landrieu said. "That's one of the reasons that the leadership in the House moved quickly on a flood insurance bill, because they knew that it could be very difficult for their Republican candidate to try to get here without having addressed the No. 1 concern of the people of that district, which is flood insurance."